Quick Hits Reviews – Week of April 6, 2011

Is there ever going to be a “light week” of comics again?  Seriously, have these companies see the sales numbers?  Try as we might, sometimes we cannot get to everything for a full review, thus….the Quick Hits Reviews….

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #5 – This was my “pick of the week” and it really came out of the blue because you usually don’t expect a middle issue (i.e. 5 out of 9) to be anything too special.  But, this issue had great action as the Young Avengers (and a few “old” Avengers) tangle with Dr. Doom, some neat time-hopping courtesy of Iron Lad and the return of an iconic character to the Marvel Universe.  So, it get’s “full credit” for story.  And Jim Cheung’s art is just incredible.  Sure, this comic only ships every other month, but it looks like Cheung is doing twice as much work and I’ve had zero trouble keeping the story straight in my head during the wait between issues.  This is really worth jumping on, folks!  Just go get the back issues and ride along from here.  Grade: A

Who is Jake Ellis #3 – This is a good example of how to maintain momentum in a story as the creators hit issue 3 out of 5.  Because they sprinkled their mysteries with a lot of Jason Borne-action in issues #1 and #2, the reader isn’t bored by now with the titular mystery.  I’m still legitimately curious about who Jake is…..and who Jon is for that matter.  I also really like that there seem to be only two plausible explanations for Jake (that he is a figment of Jon’s imagination OR he is some other ghostly agent somehow grafted to Jon), but that both seem equally plausible.  This is just a really tight series and I love the art.  Nice job guys!  Also very happy to see that this has sold well enough that it’ll we’ll be getting more than just the five originally planned issues!  Grade: B+

Sweet Tooth #20 - Here’s a tip (and a minor SPOILER)….. if you are a character in a post-Apocalyptic story and you stumble across some kind of underground sanctuary that offers copious food and shelter AND it is only being occupied by a singular caretaker, you should probably run away, right?  Do you think you’re the first people that he has brought into his trap….ooopppps…..I mean “HOME”.  Again with this issue, Lemire is setting up another story that is probably going to have a kinda grim ending because….well…..it’s Sweet Tooth.  But, you just know it’ll be told with style and will tug at your emotions in a way that very few comics will.  I’m also loving seeing Sweet Tooth himself begin to asset himself a little more in his dealings with Jepperd.  He’s come a long way from his days in the woods.  Great art!  Grade: B+

Orc Stain #6 – This series really hasn’t let up a bit since it started a year or so ago.  Sure, I wish it shipped a little more regularly, but the story is so simple that I never feel like I need to go re-read an older issue.  We still have our main character, One-Eye, locked into a game of catch-me-if-you-can with the forces of the Orctzar as they want him for some reason that I forget, but really isn’t that important to my enjoyment of the series.  The real attraction here is James Stokoe’s artistic design and linework itself.  I can’t imagine how long some of these pages take to draw because they are so incredibly detailed as he’s created this world where every table, door or apparatus has some kind of living animal as its basis.. Please just read Orc Stain!  Grade: B+

Annihilators #2 – This is a very difficult issue to review because it is really two comics welded together with a $4.99 cover price.  How do you score that?  Do you take the average?  Score them separately?  Anyway…..The “main story” is that of this team of Annihilators made up of the most powerful of the cosmic heroes (Silver Surfer, Quasar, Beta Ray Bill, Rohan, Gladiator and a new Galadorian Spaceknight) taking on Dr. Dread as he tries to repower the Dire Wraiths.  It’s a fun story with really good cosmic action and we also get the return of a classic character from the beloved ROM Spaceknight series.  The only thing not working for me on this main story is the art: I thought a lot of the panels had odd perspective issues and the characters looked kinda skinny and angular.  Not really what I wanted to see.  The Rocket Raccoon/Groot back-up was just a joy as Rocky tries to free his buddy from punishment at the hands of cyborg woodpeckers (you read that right).  Very clever art by Dan Green.  I wish Rocky and Groot were with the Annihilators, but I’ll accept this fun story for what it is.  Grade: B

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #2 – This issue had all the zany bits from the first issue (or the Axe Cop webcomic) where just insane things are happening in the middle of the story…..such as a monster truck with Axe Cop in it getting sent back to the time of dinosaurs.  However, where I thought this issue fell a little short on the execution of its story was that it had a lot fewer word balloons and relied on narration boxes to explain a lot more of the action.  I hadn’t realized this before, but those word balloons really help to slow down the somewhat frantic pacing of Axe Cop as the story jumps around like crazy (as a story written by a young boy is wont to do).  Even when the word balloon is just repeating what was in the narration box, I think they help a lot to keep the panels from being a series of “And then __________, and then ______________, and then ____________ ….”.  The art is again just awesome.  Ethan Nicolle (age 30 who illustrates his younger brother’s crazy stories) does such a great job of playing the art 100% straight with stories concepts that are really silly.  He also sneaks a lot of tidbits into the backgrounds that I really enjoy.  Grade: B

Memoir #3 - Middle issues aren’t the best way to judge a series because they are really hard to make entertaining.  I’m pretty sure this is a 5-issue series, so this is the issue where writer Ben McCool has to start transitioning from the initial concept of: “Reporter goes to creepy town where residents all lost their memories after something horrible happened.” to whatever the final resolution for this story will be.  The problem that I have with issues/stories like this one is that I just want to know what happened NOW.  I don’t need Act II from stories like this…..or Act II better be something really hot to justify its existence.  That’s not to say that the story was “poor” in any way.  The comic is very well written, but impatient folks like me end up going into “skimming mode” as we’re jumping ahead to the next perceived “important” event.  All that being said, one of the best things that a comic like this can have to help it over the Act II hump is great art and Nikki Cook continues with her really creepy, B&W art.  She sets the unsettling mood with her art that includes lots of tight shots and low angles. I fully expect the last couple issues to be better now that Act II is behind us.  Grade: C+

Fear Itself: The Home Front #1 – The obligatory anthology series to accompany the EVENT is here and this first issue was no great shakes.  What I want out of an anthology is just ONE stellar story and I didn’t get it in this issue.  There was nothing “bad” about this issue, but nothing that screams…..”You MUST buy this series!”  It looks like the format will include a seven part story of Speedball trying to atone for his part in sparking the Superhero Civil War and coming into conflict with the surviving citizenry, so if you’re into Speedball, this might be worth checking out.  Why does Speedball have to be central to every Event?  Other reasons to check this out: There is an Agents of Atlas story (not written by Jeff Parker, though) and a story illustrated by Pepe Larraz (who I’m quite fond of).  But, it seems like every issue of this, you could flip it open in the store and see if you care about those stories or creators and make your purchase story based on that alone.  Grade: C-

The Intrepids #2 – This comic still has a lot of zany action such as baboon soldiers who are armed with kitchen items like meat tenderizers and frying pans, but for some reason this comic just isn’t grabbing me.  I’ve seen enough reviews online to know that some people are really digging this story of a bunch of misfit kids who are taken in by a strange benefactor, given powers and asked to help fight evil scientists, but it just isn’t doing it for me from either a story or art standpoint.  I think the problem is that I really want my non-Marvel/DC comics to take more chances and tell me a story that could never get past the editorial groups of a Fortune 500 company and I’m not getting that risk-taking air from Intrepids.  I saw attack monkeys in She-Hulks last fall.  Not bad, but not really doing what I want a non-Big 2 comic to do.  Your mileage may vary.  Grade: C-

-Dean Stell

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